Annie Penn Hospital has received a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust in Winston-Salem to connect Hispanic and homeless people in Rockingham County to healthcare. The $316,663 grant is for two years.

The grant will create a faith-based Patient Navigator Program that will use nurses, social workers and interpreters to help Hispanics and the homeless find consistent care.

“It’s crucial that we identify and get them into some kind of medical home instead of waiting until the need for care turns catastrophic,” says Stokes Ann Hunt, Director, Community Outreach and Foundation, Annie Penn Hospital. “Many people in these populations don’t seek medical care until it is too late.”

A medical home would provide preventive care or help manage chronic conditions such as diabetes before health problems become more difficult to treat or manage.

The Patient Navigator Program will use the Free Clinic of Rockingham County, Rockingham County Department of Public Health and area primary care doctors to provide care. It should begin operations in late July or early August.

The program will reach out to area residents through churches and offices in Reidsville and Madison and will be managed by the Congregational Nurse Program of Cone Health. Hunt says that Annie Penn Hospital has been talking with area churches and had the idea of a Patient Navigator Program on its wish list for more than a year.